'Michael Johnson appears to have timed his run in to the Olympics to perfection'

'Michael Johnson appears to have timed his run in to the Olympics to perfection'

Johnson has been pushed to attempt this never-achieved Olympic double - the 200 m and 400 m.

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Pat Butcher

July 31, 1996

ISSUE DATE: July 31, 1996

UPDATED: June 14, 2013 11:57 IST

The king is dead? Not quite, but he is on the way out and it seems strongly that Atlanta will see the sun set on his reign. So, long live the King! He seems to be going from strength to strength. We are talking here, of course, about Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson, the old King and the new King. Lewis - the hero of Los Angeles 1984 when he emulated Jesse Owens in 1936 and won four gold medals, going on to win four more - is clinging to the last vestiges of power.

He was unceremoniously dumped out of the 100m and 200 m at the US Olympic trials, barely qualifying in the long jump. Even then, he trailed badly behind Mike Powell, the man who finally broke Bob Beamon's 23-year-old world record and broke Lewis' heart in Tokyo in 1991.

Never can a man have been appointed so long the natural successor, as Lewis was to Beamon, and then fail so spectacularly. But it is still hard to write Lewis off. After all, didn't he come back from that world record defeat in Tokyo and take his third consecutive Olympic long jump gold by beating Powell in Barcelona?

And so to the new King! Johnson appears to have timed his run in to the Olympics to perfection, even down to the 'breaking of Pietro Mennea's "oldest record in athletics" - the 200 m mark - as the final act of the US trials. What's more, Johnson's 19.66 seconds, taking 0.06 seconds off Mennea's 17-year-old mark, came after he won the 400 m trial in 43.33 seconds, the third-fastest time in history.

But life is full of contradictions. Johnson has been pushed to attempt this never-achieved Olympic "double" - the 200 m and 400 m - largely owing to his failure in Barcelona, when, concentrating on the 200 m only, he was eliminated in the semi-finals. And who would have forecast that? Certainly not this writer.

The evening of the London Grand Prix in 1992, just three weeks before the Games in Barcelona, I was having dinner with Johnson and his manager and idly supposed that the sprinter was going straight home to Texas to prepare for his first Olympics. "No," said his manager, "We've just accepted an invitation to run in Salamanca." Not only was it going to be a race too far, it was a tragedy foreseen.

Wing Footed, Michael Johnson: His failure at Barcelona is well behind him as the US sprinter aims at two golds - in the 200 m and 400 m - this time

Johnson actually talked about problems with food, particularly sea-food that he encountered on his travels. As a frequent visitor to Spain, I assured him that there wouldn't be any problem. And what happens? He gets seafood poisoning, loses over 4 kg in weight, and is still suffering when the Games begin.

He managed to get through the heats, but simply faded away in the later stages of his semifinal. He won a relay gold but it's not quite the same. Which is why he wants to make up for lost time and win two individual golds in Atlanta.

He already did the trick in Goteborg, at the World Championships last year, so if he stays away from the squid this time, he won't find himself treading water in the finishing straight. There's also been something of a sea change in Johnson himself, which is equally welcome. Never the most effusive of characters, never prone to acts of showmanship, Johnson was accused of not exuding star quality.

Yet change has come and this was most obvious after he won the second leg of his Goteborg "double", when he crossed the line and fell flat on his back with a huge smile on his face. Okay, it was a premeditated photop but coming from a man who seemed more at home with the lines on his face than those on the track, it was a revelation.

And for such a self-engrossed person, it was fascinating to see Johnson transfixed at the track side when new field event star Jonathan Edwards was triple jumping. Edwards is one of the best things that has happened to athletics in a long time, not only from the point of view of his superlative jumping but also for his "Vicar's son" clean-living image, in a sport suspected of just about anything. since Ben Johnson's stanozolol-fuelled sprint in Seoul 1988. Another world record from Edwards would be great news for athletics.

There appears no one particular contender for the 'Woman of the Games' label. It could have been local Atlanta heroine Gwen Torrence but she failed to qualify to defend her Olympic 200 m title. Gail Devers, though, remains on course to win the 100 m flat and hurdles "double" that eluded her in Barcelona where she fell at the final barrier while well in the lead.

As far as competition among rival nations is concerned, many people disdain the national "medal table", but everybody looks at it. And the track and field count could well be substantially different this year. In the years since the Soviet Union was first admitted, the medal count has been like the cold war played out on the sports field, with the Soviet Union vying with the US for domination.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union was too soon before Barcelona to have an impact, so they still managed to dominate. But now colleagues on Sovietsky Sport, the biggest-selling sports daily in the world (five million copies in its heyday), and the new Moscow Sports Express all say that the withdrawal of state finance means sport will crumble. So it looks like Uncle Sam will clean up in his backyard.

On the other hand, there will be an increase in smaller countries making an impact. Of course, that would not be particularly surprising for it has happened before. In 1952, for instance, few people expected Josy Barthel of tiny Luxembourg to waltz off with the 1,500 m gold medal. But no one will be surprised this year if Algerian athletes Noureddine Morceli and Hassiba Boulmerka win both men's and women's 1,500 m golds. And who would have forecast a Syrian woman, Gada Shouaa, being one of the favourites for the heptathlon?

No one expects Atlanta to match up to the attractions of Los Angeles 1984, the last time that the Games came to the US. After all, the heat is bound to hurt. Yet with the professionalisation of athletics sending the sport surging forward in all departments (apart from Seb Coe's 800 m mark (1981), most of the world records have been set in the past five years), expect at least to see superlative sprint times.

An acclaimed journalist, now also known for his television documentaries, Pat Butcher is an established authority on athletics.

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